House Unanimously Passes Legislation Increasing Secret Service Protection For Presidential Candidates

The U.S. House of Representatives unanimously advanced a bill Friday that would increase Secret Service protection for major presidential and vice presidential candidates following the second attempt on former President Donald Trump’s life earlier last week.

The final vote tally came out at 405 to 0 with a handful of lawmakers absent at the time the vote was taken.

This legislation directs the Secret Service to develop and apply universal standards for the protection of presidents, vice presidents and major presidential and vice presidential candidates.

Before this bill can be signed into law, it must first be approved by lawmakers in the Senate.

[RELATED: Trump Targeted in Second Assassination Attempt at Florida Golf Club]

H.R.9106 — The Enhanced Presidential Security Act of 2024 — was introduced in the House by Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) alongside Reps. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), Marcus J. Molinaro (R-NY), Brandon Williams (R-NY), and Thomas H. Kean, Jr. (R-NJ).

Other co-sponsors of this legislation include Reps. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), Michael Guest (R-MS), Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY), Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY), Claudia Tenney (R-NY), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA), and Nicholas A. Langworthy (R-NY).

Following Friday’s vote, Rep. Torres told CNN that he is “cautiously optimistic” about the likelihood that the bill will be passed by lawmakers in the Senate.

“Both the House and the Senate, both Democrats and Republicans, should come together as one, and we should be dedicated to a bipartisan, bicameral proposition, that both major presidential candidates of both parties are entitled to the highest level of presidential protection, secret service protection,” he said.

“Elections are determined at the ballot box, not by an assassin’s bullet,” Rep. Lawler, the bill’s primary sponsor, said on the House floor Friday morning.

“That these incidents were allowed to occur is a stain on our country,” he continued. “We have endured through a assassinations of political leaders including presidents. It is destructive to our country, it is destructive to our democracy, our constitutional republic, and it undermines the confidence that Americans have in their government and in the electoral process.”

According to ABC News, it is unlikely that the Senate will take up this legislation until after the election this November.

During a press conference Friday, Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe said that former President Trump has had the same level of security as a sitting president since the first attempt was made on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13.

“We’ve been doing that since July 13,” Acting Director Rowe said. “What I can tell you is that when I say the highest levels of Secret Service protection, the former president is getting tactical assets, he’s getting everything that the current president has with respect to Secret Service assets.”

“Hoping for the best or lucking out is not a policy prescription for protecting a president or presidential candidate,” said Torres in advance of Friday’s vote in the House.

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) suggested that guns are the common denominator among every successful and many attempted assassinations.

“In every single one of these events, the weapon used was a gun,” Rep. Nadler said on the floor of the House. “The fact is that the work of the Secret Service is made infinitely more difficult by our lax gun laws.”

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) argued that Nadler and other Democrats are blaming Trump for the attempts that have been made on his life.

“They cannot help themselves. It’s ridiculous,” Rep. Jordan said, according to CBS News.

On Monday, the former president spoke with Fox News Digital and suggested that President Joe Biden (D) and Vice President Kamala Harris’ (D) “rhetoric” is to blame for him being “shot at.”

“He believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris, and he acted on it,” Trump said during the interview. “Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at, when I am the one who is going to save the country, and they are the ones that are destroying the country — both from the inside and out.”